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•IMES  MOfT  HALLOWELL 


irit  UNIVhRSITY  LIBRAW 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SAN  DIEGU 

LA  JOLLA,  CALIFORNIA 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 


BY 
JAMES  MOTT  HALLOWELL 

Former  Astittant  Attorney-General 
of  Mustachutetts 


GARDEN  CITY  NEW  YORK 

DOUBLED  AY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

1918 


Copyright,  1918,  by 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

All  rights  reserved,  including  thai  of 

translation  into  foreign  languages, 

including  the  Scandinavian 


DEDICATED  TO 

THE  AMERICAN  SOLDIER  IN  FRANCE 

WHO  HAS  ANSWERED  THE 

CALL  OF  LAFAYETTE 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 


The  Spirit  of  Lafayette 


A  PEW  years  after  the  signing  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  a  hostile 
Mohawk  chief  met  in  council  a  representa- 
tive of  the  young  American  republics  for 
the  purpose  of  concluding  a  treaty  of 
peace.  The  representative  of  young  democ- 
racy was  a  soldier  of  France,  the  Marquis 
de  Lafayette.  Primitive  America  on  the 
one  hand,  ancient  Europe  on  the  other! 
"Father,"  said  the  Indian,  "we  have  heard 
thy  voice  and  we  rejoice  that  thou  hast 
visited  thy  children  to  give  to  them  good 
and  necessary  advice.  Thou  hast  said 
that  we  have  done  wrong  hi  opening  our 

3 


4        THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

ears  to  wicked  men,  and  closing  our  hearts 
to  thy  counsels.  Father,  it  is  all  true;  we 
have  left  the  good  path;  we  have  wandered 
away  from  it  and  have  been  enveloped  in  a 
black  cloud.  We  have  now  returned  that 
thou  mayest  find  in  us  good  and  faithful 
children.  We  rejoice  to  hear  thy  voice 
among  us.  It  seems  that  the  Great  Spirit 
has  directed  thy  footsteps  to  this  council 
of  friendship  to  smoke  the  calumet  of 
peace  and  fellowship  with  thy  long-lost 
children." 

The  Indian  warrior's  vision  was  true  in 
a  greater  sense  than  he  knew.  Through 
him  the  soul  of  America  spoke  to  the  soul 
of  Europe,  and  it  spoke  of  the  fellowship  of 
man.  Perhaps  the  footsteps  of  this  soldier 
of  France  were  indeed  directed  by  a  high 
Providence.  Perhaps  he  was  himself  a 
message  from  the  infinite.  I  love,  for  my 
own  part,  to  believe  that  at  his  birth  there 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE        5 

appeared  in  this  world  an  eternal  and 
mighty  spirit,  a  spirit  perhaps  from  another 
age  or  sphere.  Who  knows?  Why  not? 
Who  is  there  can  look  into  the  great  un- 
known, the  vast  and  impenetrable  depths 
of  the  heavens,  and  say  that  this  could  not 
be,  and  was  not  so?  How  else  explain  this 
child  of  a  French  monarchy,  brought  up 
among  the  titled  nobility  of  France,  who 
amidst  such  conditions  grew  to  manhood — 
the  devotee  of  freedom  and  the  ever-loyal 
champion  of  democracy? 

Lafayette  was  born  on  September  6, 
1757,  at  the  Chateau  de  Chavagnac  in  the 
province  of  Auvergne  in  the  monarchy  of 
France.  Two  months  before  his  birth  his 
father  was  killed  in  battle.  Left  to  the 
sole  guidance  of  an  indulgent  mother,  sur- 
rounded by  flattering  attendants  and  the 
enervating  influences  of  wealth  and  noble 
birth,  he  faced  the  empty  and  useless  life 


6        THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

of  a  mere  titled,  wealthy  aristocrat.  What 
saved  him?  To  add  to  these  inauspicious 
beginnings,  he  was,  at  the  age  of  twelve, 
sent  to  Paris  to  the  College  du  Plessis 
where  his  rank  and  wealth  introduced  him 
to  all  the  gaieties  and  dissipations  of  ex- 
clusive fashionable  Parisian  society.  His 
mother  died  when  he  was  but  thirteen, 
leaving  him  in  the  full  possession  of  large 
and  valuable  estates,  the  absolute  master 
of  his  own  destiny,  and  subject  to  the  in- 
dulgences and  corruptions  of  one  of  the 
most  notorious  courts  of  all  Europe.  Of  a 
winning  personality,  he  was  appointed  one 
of  the  King's  pages,  a  position  much 
coveted  by  the  princes  and  nobles  of  the 
kingdom.  He  was  also  enrolled  in  the 
King's  Regiment  of  Mousquetaires,  and 
at  the  age  of  fifteen  through  the  favour  of 
the  Queen  obtained  a  commission,  an 
honour  conferred  as  a  mark  of  especial 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE        7 

royal  regard.  He  was  married  at  the  age 
of  sixteen,  and  his  young  wife  was  a  daugh- 
ter of  the  aristocratic  house  of  Noailles, 
one  of  the  most  powerful  and  influential 
families  of  the  French  court.  What  more 
profoundly  barren  soil  could  be  chosen  to 
produce  the  self-denying  fighter  for  lib- 
erty, the  clean-minded  democrat,  La- 
fayette? 

A  significant  incident  is  told  of  his 
early  life.  Shortly  after  his  marriage,  his 
wife's  family  sought  for  him  an  honorary 
position  in  the  household  of  the  Count 
de  Provenge,  afterward  Louis  XVIII 
King  of  France.  Lafayette  did  not  wish 
the  appointment.  The  spirit  of  Lafayette, 
the  democrat,  was  already  restive  under 
royal  authority.  To  prevent  the  honour 
being  thrust  upon  him,  and  in  order  at  the 
same  time  not  to  offend  his  family  by  re- 
fusing to  accept,  he  sought  an  opportunity 


8       THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

to  make  himself  so  obnoxious  to  the  Count 
that  the  arrangement  could  not  go  through. 
The  chance  offered  itself  at  a  masked  ball 
where  the  Count  appeared  in  a  disguise 
which  was  instantly  penetrated  by  La- 
fayette. Making  himself  known,  he  lost 
no  time  in  engaging  in  conversation  the 
royal  personage,  who  thought  himself  un- 
known, and  with  a  freedom  and  boldness 
bordering  upon  discourtesy,  he  gave  voice 
to  facts  and  opinions  which  he  knew  would 
be  obnoxious  to  his  listener's  ear.  The 
future  King  of  France  had  little  hesitation 
in  making  up  his  mind  that  the  young 
Marquis  would  be  a  refractory  attache, 
and  declined  to  make  the  requested  ap- 
pointment. 

Providence,  or  his  own  spirit,  had  saved 
Lafayette  for  democracy. 


n 

IN  1775  in  the  new  western  hemisphere 
democracy  was  born  to  the  modern  world. 

"By  the  rude  bridge  that  arched  the  flood, 
Their  flag  to  April's  breeze  unfurled, 

Here  once  the  embattled  farmers  stood 

And  fired  the  shot  heard  'round  the  world." 

Across  the  vast  Atlantic  rolled  its  echoes. 
Across  a  trackless  sea,  across  the  lands  of 
France,  up  through  the  great  White  Ways 
of  Paris  it  resounded.  It  knocked  against 
the  palace  doors  of  the  King  of  France. 
On  through  the  flippant  gibe,  the  careless 
laugh,  the  carousing  and  the  din  of  the 
royal  court,  it  reached  and  touched  the 
spirit  of  Lafayette. 


10      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

What  was  the  strange  tale  that  came  to 
him  from  the  New  World?  Was  it  a  tale 
of  liberty  triumphant  and  conquering,  a 
tale  of  success,  a  tale  to  touch  the  imagina- 
tion of  a  soldier  through  the  glory  of  a 
winning  cause?  Far  from  it.  After  a 
brief  temporary  success  in  Massachusetts 
the  cause  of  the  newly-born  confederated 
American  republics  seemed  to  be  tottering 
upon  the  brink  of  total  destruction.  The 
rout  of  the  Americans  at  Brooklyn  and 
the  consequent  abandonment  of  Long 
Island  was  followed  by  their  evacuation  of 
New  York  City.  The  American  army  was 
becoming  demoralized.  The  militia  were 
impatient  to  return  home,  were  disobedient 
to  orders,  and  were  deserting  in  large 
numbers — it  is  said  "by  half  and  even  by 
whole  regiments."  Then  followed  the 
Americans'  defeat  at  White  Plains,  the 
surrender  of  Fort  Washington,  the  evacua- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      11 

tion  of  Fort  Lee,  and  the  steady  dishearten- 
ing of  the  American  forces.  The  ineffec- 
tual attempts  to  increase  the  militia,  the 
indisposition  of  the  inhabitants  to  farther 
resistance,  the  retreat  of  General  Washing- 
ton through  New  Jersey  at  the  head  of  less 
than  three  thousand  men,  poorly  armed, 
almost  without  tents,  blankets,  or  provi- 
sions, discouraged  by  constant  reverses, 
many  of  them  half-clad  and  barefooted  hi 
the  cold  of  November  and  December, 
passing  through  a  desponding  country  and 
pursued  by  a  numerous,  well-appointed, 
and  victorious  army — all  these  events 
made  liberty  at  this  time  indeed 

"A  wretched  soul  bruised  with  adversity." 

It  was  at  this  stage  of  the  conflict  that 
Lafayette  determined  to  cross  the  Atlantic 
and  take  up  the  cause  of  the  thirteen  little 
republics.  Benjamin  Franklin,  one  of 


12      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

America's  two  representatives  in  France, 
who  at  first  had  welcomed  this  offer  of 
assistance,  upon  learning  of  the  continued 
American  reverses,  and  almost  despairing 
of  the  success  of  the  cause,  is  reported 
honourably  to  have  endeavoured  to  dis- 
suade the  Marquis  from  carrying  his  design 
into  execution.  Franklin  and  Silas  Deane, 
the  other  American  representative  in 
France,  told  him  they  were  unable  to  ob- 
tain a  vessel  for  his  passage.  France  was 
then  at  peace,  and  the  King  of  France  for- 
bade his  departure.  Under  the  laws  of 
France  he  risked  the  confiscation  of  all  his 
property,  as  well  as  capture  on  the  high 
seas.  There  was  no  winning  cause  to  lure 
him,  merely  thirteen  little  newly-born  re- 
publics struggling  for  a  principle,  fighting 
for  democracy — a  weak,  bedraggled,  and 
dispirited  democracy,  a  democracy  half- 
clad  and  poverty  stricken,  a  barefooted, 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      13 

half-naked  democracy  that  was  very 
nearly  down  and  out. 

"Now,"  he  replied  to  Franklin  and 
Deane,  "is  precisely  the  moment  to  serve 
your  cause;  the  more  people  are  dis- 
couraged, the  greater  utility  will  result  from 
my  departure;  and  if  you  cannot  furnish 
me  with  a  vessel,  I  shall  charter  one  at  my 
own  expense  to  convey  your  despatches 
and  my  person  to  the  shores  of  America." 

In  a  Paris  paper  of  that  year,  there 
appears  the  following  item: 

Paris,  April  4,  1777. 

One  of  the  richest  of  our  young  nobility,  the 
Marquis  de  Lafayette,  a  relation  of  the  Duke  de 
Noailles,  between  nineteen  and  twenty  years  of 
age,  has  at  his  own  expense  hired  a  vessel  and 
provided  everything  necessary  for  a  voyage  to 
America,  with  two  officers  of  his  acquaintance.  He 
set  out  last  week,  having  told  his  lady  and  family 
that  he  was  going  to  Italy.  He  is  to  serve  as 
Major-General  in  the  American  army. 


in 

LAFAYETTE  arrived  in  America  in  June, 
1777,  and  at  once  plunged  into  the  struggle. 
He  refused  an  active  command  at  first, 
preferring  to  serve  in  a  more  humble 
capacity  until  accustomed  to  American 
troops.  In  the  Battle  of  Brandywine, 
only  some  forty  days  after  his  arrival,  he 
received  a  wound  from  a  musket  ball — a 
wound  sufficient  to  keep  him  in  bed  for 
six  weeks.  This  battle  was  a  defeat  for  the 
American  forces  and  was  followed  by  the 
fall  of  the  City  of  Philadelphia.  Wounds 
and  defeat  seem,  however,  to  have  acted 
only  as  a  stimulus,  and  in  December,  1777, 
as  a  reward  for  intrepid  and  brilliant  ser- 
vice, he  was  given  the  command  of  a 
14 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      15 

division  of  the  American  army.     He  was 
then  twenty  years  of  age. 

Then  followed  four  years  of  active 
service  under  General  Washington,  broken 
only  by  a  temporary  return  to  France  in 
1779  on  a  diplomatic  mission.  Gentle 
and  courteous,  yet  apparently  insensible 
to  fear,  his  spirit  was  an  inspiration.  At 
the  Battle  of  Monmouth  the  enemy,  dur- 
ing a  lull,  observed  a  general  officer  in  the 
service  of  the  Americans  advancing  into 
the  danger  zone,  with  some  other  officers 
and  men,  to  reconnoitre  the  enemy's 
position.  An  aide-de-camp  fell,  struck 
by  a  ball,  and  all  but  the  general  fled 
precipitately.  They  saw  the  latter,  al- 
though under  the  fire  of  a  battery,  lean 
to  assist  the  stricken  aide,  and  finding  that 
all  was  ended  turn  and  slowly  rejoin  the 
others.  The  British  commander,  General 
Clinton,  ordered  his  men  not  to  fire;  and 


16      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

the  chivalry  of  this  Englishman  proba- 
bly saved  the  American  officer's  life.  It 
was  Lafayette. 

In  1780  he  asked  leave  to  take  a  position 
in  the  Southern  Department  where  the 
situation  of  the  American  army  is  de- 
scribed in  a  letter  to  Lafayette  by  General 
Greene,  then  commanding  the  division. 

"It  is  now  within  a  few  days  of  the  time 
when  you  shall  be  with  me.  Were  you 
to  arrive  you  would  find  a  few  ragged,  half- 
starved  troops  in  the  wilderness,  destitute 
of  everything  necessary  for  either  the  com- 
fort or  convenience  of  soldiers.  .  .  . 
The  country  is  almost  laid  waste  and  the 
inhabitants  plunder  one  another  with  little 
less  than  savage  fury.  We  live  from  hand 
to  mouth,  and  have  nothing  to  subsist 
on  but  what  we  collect  with  armed  parties. 
.  .  .  I  fear  this  department  is  to  be 
the  great  Serbonian  bog  to  the  American 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      17 

armies   and   particularly   to   the   general 
officers." 

The  vision  of  a  Serbonian  bog  acted 
only  as  a  magnet,  and  Lafayette  started 
to  join  Greene.  On  his  way,  however,  he 
was  recalled  by  the  Commander-in-chief, 
General  Washington,  to  take  command 
of  an  expedition  against  Benedict  Arnold, 
the  traitor,  now  a  brigadier-general  in  the 
enemy's  army,  who  was  marching  into 
Virginia  and  with  revengeful  fury  carrying 
fire  and  sword  wherever  he  went.  La- 
fayette was  dispatched  against  him  with 
specific  orders  that  if  Arnold  surrendered 
there  should  be  no  stipulation  made  for 
his  safety,  and  at  the  same  time  forbidding 
the  slightest  injury  to  his  person; — it  being 
the  purpose  of  Washington,  never  how- 
ever fulfilled,  to  bring  Arnold  to  public 
punishment  according  to  the  rules  and 
regulations  of  the  army. 


18      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

Lafayette's  command  seems  to  have 
been  no  better  than  Greene's.  In  a  letter 
to  Greene  he  describes  his  men  as  being  in 
a  condition  of  "shocking  nakedness." 
Even  the  officers  were  destitute  of  money, 
clothing,  and  everything  that  could  con- 
tribute to  cleanliness  and  comfort.  As 
for  the  men,  they  were  poorly  fed,  their 
shoes  worn  out,  without  tents,  and  des- 
titute of  almost  any  protection  from  the 
inclemency  of  the  weather.  Some  of  his 
officers  assured  the  Marquis  that  his  com- 
mand would  speedily  be  reduced  one- 
half  by  desertion, — and  as  a  matter  of  fact 
thirteen  out  of  one  company  deserted  in  a 
single  day.  A  nauseous  and  contagious 
disease,  generally  produced  by  a  want  of 
cleanliness,  overspread  nearly  the  entire 
command.  In  consequence  of  these  diffi- 
culties, Arnold  escaped,  but  Lafayette 
forced  his  retreat. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      19 

The  military  genius  of  George  Washing- 
ton at  last  turned  the  tide  of  war.     In 
October,  1781,  he  had  the  enemy's  troops 
under  Cornwallis  cornered  at  Yorktown. 
In  the  course  of  the  siege  it  became  neces- 
sary to  capture  a  certain  redoubt  possessed 
by  the  enemy.     Washington  determined  to 
carry  it  with  the  bayonet,  and  appointed 
Lafayette   to   conduct   the   charge.     The 
American  infantry  advanced  with  irresist- 
ible  power,   relying   entirely   upon   their 
bayonets,    and    carried    the    redoubt    by 
assault. 

Shortly  afterward  Cornwallis  surrender- 
ed his  entire  army  to  Washington,  and  the 
last  battle  of  the  American  Revolution 
had  been  fought.  In  November,  1781, 
the  confederated  republics  having  won, 
Lafayette  returned  to  France. 

Washington  and  Lafayette !  The  Amer- 
ican and  the  Frenchman.  Great  soldiers 


20      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

both,  but  above  all,  great  men.  The  real 
soul  of  the  soldier  speaks  out  in  this  letter 
from  the  American  to  the  Frenchman, 
written  in  1784 :  "At  length,  my  dear  Mar- 
quis, I  have  become  a  private  citizen  on 
the  banks  of  the  Potomac;  and  under  the 
shadow  of  my  own  vine  and  my  own  fig- 
tree,  free  from  the  bustle  of  the  camp  and 
the  busy  scenes  of  public  life,  I  am  solacing 
myself  with  those  tranquil  enjoyments, 
of  which  the  soldier  who  is  ever  in  pursuit 
of  fame,  the  statesman  whose  watchful 
days  and  sleepless  nights  are  spent  in 
devising  schemes  to  promote  the  welfare 
of  his  own,  perhaps  the  ruin  of  other 
countries,  as  if  this  globe  was  insufficient 
for  us  all — and  the  courtier  who  is  always 
watching  the  countenance  of  his  prince  in 
the  hope  of  catching  a  gracious  smile — can 
have  very  little  conception.  I  have  not 
only  retired  from  all  public  employments, 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      21 

but  am  retiring  within  myself  and  shall 
be  able  to  view  the  solitary  walk,  and  tread 
the  paths  of  private  life  with  heartfelt 
satisfaction.  Envious  of  none,  I  am  de- 
termined to  be  pleased  with  all;  and  this, 
my  dear  friend,  being  the  order  of  my 
march,  I  shall  move  gently  down  the  stream 
of  life  until  I  sleep  with  my  fathers." 


IV 

THE  scene  in  the  world-wide  drama  of 
democracy  shifts  across  the  Atlantic  Ocean, 
from  America  to  France.  The  French 
Revolution  of  1789  and  the  Reign  of 
Terror — a  century's  pent-up  rage  against 
despotism,  let  loose  in  a  single  hour! 

When  Madame  Roland  was  summoned 
before  the  revolutionary  tribunal  she  came 
with  a  smile  upon  her  lips,  her  face  spark- 
ling with  life  and  animation.  Condemned 
in  advance,  she  was  falsely  declared  guilty 
of  being  the  author  of  a  "mutinous  con- 
spiracy against  the  unity  and  defense  of 
the  republic."  She  heard  her  sentence 
calmly.  "You  deem  me  worthy  the  fate 
of  the  great  men  you  have  murdered.  I 

22 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      23 

shall  try  to  display  the  same  courage  on 
the  scaffold."  She  was  at  once  taken  in  a 
cart  to  the  Place  de  la  Revolution,  a  man 
guilty  of  treason  being  placed  in  the  same 
cart.  He  was  overwhelmed  with  terror 
and  she  occupied  her  time  in  soothing  him. 
On  reaching  the  guillotine,  she  bade  him 
mount  the  steps  first,  that  his  sufferings 
might  not  be  prolonged.  As  she  took  her 
place,  her  eyes  fell  on  a  colossal  statue  of 
Liberty,  recently  erected  near  by.  "O 
Liberty,"  she  cried,  "what  crimes  are 
committed  in  thy  name!" 

"There  is  no  God."  Thus  in  1793,  by 
solemn  enactment  of  the  Terrorists,  was 
the  Deity  legislated  out  of  existence. 
There  is  no  God!  What  sayest  thou  now, 
Robespierre?  Dost  thou  say  so,  now  ? 
How  likedst  thou  thy  brief  space  of  usur- 
pation? A  few  brief  months  of  power — 
night  and  day  with  loaded  pistols  at  thy 


24      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

side — no  food  till  some  one  else  had  tasted 
from  thy  dish,  lest  it  be  poisoned.  And 
then  another  scene  in  that  same  legislative 
hall,  the  hall  of  thy  own  great  terrifying 
power.  A  vote  ordering  thy  arrest!  Vain 
are  thy  shrieks — a  detachment  of  thy  own 
soldiers  forces  its  way  into  the  room — a 
pistol  shot  rings  out,  and  thou  with  shat- 
tered jaw,  a  ghastly  spectacle,  facest  thy 
end.  Thou  fallest,  and  some  spit  upon 
thy  prostrate  form,  others  stab  thee  with 
their  knives.  Still  living,  thy  body  is 
hurried  before  the  tribunal  thou  thyself 
didst  form,  and  thence  to  the  guillotine. 
O  Robespierre,  thinkest  thou  now  there  is 
a  God? 

License,  not  liberty.  Mania,  not  reason. 
How  fared  the  spirit  of  Lafayette  during 
this  debauchery  in  the  name  of  freedom? 


A  BRIEF  interval  of  less  than  ten  years 
intervened  between  the  closing  scenes  of 
the  American  Revolution  and  the  opening 
scenes  of  the  French  Revolution.  Democ- 
racy in  America  was  a  victor,  and  the 
republic  had  been  established.  Democ- 
racy in  France  was  just  entering  upon  its 
cyclonic  and  hideous  struggle  for  the  right 
to  live. 

The  government  of  France  was  at  that 
time  an  absolute  despotism.  The  king 
was  the  supreme  arbiter  of  its  destinies. 
He  was  the  head  of  the  army.  He  ap- 
pointed his  own  ministers,  made  his  own 
laws,  levied  and  raised  taxes  at  his  pleasure, 
and  lavished  his  treasures  as  he  pleased. 

25 


26      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

The  common  people  were  more  like  cattle 
than  men.  They  tilled  the  ground  and 
bore  the*  yoke;  the  king  and  the  aristoc- 
racy wielded  the  whip.  Years  of  suffer- 
ing ignorance  for  the  many — years  of 
riotous  profligacy  for  the  few! 

True  democracy  is  world-wide.  It 
knows  no  nationality.  All  mankind  are 
its  countrymen.  When  at  the  close  of 
the  American  war  Lafayette  returned  to 
France,  he  hung  in  his  house  a  copy  of 
the  American  Declaration  of  Independence 
upon  one  of  the  walls,  leaving  the  corres- 
ponding space  on  the  opposite  side  vacant. 
"What  do  you  mean  to  place  here?"  asked 
one  of  his  friends.  "A  Declaration  of 
Rights  for  France,'*  he  replied. 

Frederick  the  Great,  King  of  Prussia, 
the  first  giant  of  the  Hohenzollerns  and  the 
f  ountain  head  of  modern  Prussian  autocracy, 
attracted  by  Lafayette's  military  reputa- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE  27 
tion,  invited  him  to  the  royal  palace  at  Pots- 
dam to  witness  and  take  part  in  the  review 
of  the  Prussian  army.  At  dinner  one  even- 
ing Frederick  declared  confidently  his 
opinion  that  America  would  not  long  be  a 
republic,  but  would  return  to  the  good  old 
system.  "Never,  sir,"  replied  his  guest. 
"A  monarchy,  a  nobility  can  never  exist 
in  America."  "Sir,"  said  the  monarch, 
"I  knew  a  young  man  who,  after  having 
visited  countries  where  liberty  and  equality 
reigned,  conceived  the  idea  of  establishing 
the  same  system  in  his  own  country.  Do 
you  know  what  happened  to  him?  "  " No, 
sir."  "He  was  hanged,"  replied  the  King 
with  a  smile. 

In  1789  the  mutterings  of  the  coming 
storm  became  more  ominous,  but  the 
King  of  France,  deafened  by  the  clamour 
of  cackling  advice  from  his  aristocracy, 
either  could  not  or  would  not  hear.  Al- 


28      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

most  bankrupt  because  of  the  extravagance 
of  the  court,  he  needed  money,  still  more 
money,  and  called  an  "assembly  of  not- 
ables" to  assist  in  devising  measures  to 
relieve  his  embarrassed  finances.  They 
were  men  from  the  most  distinguished  of 
the  nobility.  Lafayette  was  one.  In  a 
letter  to  Washington  he  humorously  re- 
marked that  "wicked  people  called  them 
not-ables."  Lafayette's  part  in  the  as- 
sembly consisted  in  making  a  bold  protest 
against  the  prodigality  of  the  crown. 
"All  the  millions  given  up  to  cupidity  or 
depredation,"  he  forcefully  exclaimed  to 
the  noble  gathering,  "are  the  fruit  of  the 
sweat,  the  tears,  and  perhaps  the  blood,  of 
the  nation";  and  he  concluded  by  request- 
ing that  the  King  convoke  a  real  National 
Assembly,  made  up  of  representatives  of 
the  common  people.  It  was  the  beginning 
of  the  Revolution.  For  Lafayette's  part 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      29 

in  this  the  King's  prime  minister,  Calonne, 
proposed  to  the  monarch  to  send  Lafayette 
to  the  Bastile. 

Nothing  was  accomplished  by  the  not- 
ables, and  the  monarch  then  decided  to 
assemble  the  states-general.  This  was 
not  a  legislative  body,  but  an  assembly 
of  representatives  from  the  nobility,  the 
clergy,  and  the  common  people,  sometimes 
called  by  the  crown  when  it  needed  assis- 
tance, the  commons  always  being  in  the 
minority.  The  commons,  le  tieres  Mat 
grasped  the  opportunity,  met  by  them- 
selves, and  on  June  17,  1789,  resolved 
themselves  into  a  National  Assembly,  to 
accomplish  the  regeneration  of  France. 

Troops  were  summoned  by  the  crown 
to  put  down  the  rebellion,  and  more  than 
fifty  thousand  mercenary  troops  from 
foreign  states  were  engaged  by  the  King 
to  take  the  place  of  the  French  troops, 


30      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

whom  he  distrusted.  Lafayette  joined 
with  the  National  Assembly,  and  then 
and  there  proposed  to  it  the  first  draft 
of  that  French  Declaration  of  Rights  for 
which  he  had  prophetically  left  a  space  on 
the  wall  of  his  home.  The  essence  of  his 
draft  lies  in  the  following  extract:  "No 
man  can  be  subject  to  any  laws,  excepting 
those  which  have  received  the  assent  of 
himself  or  his  representatives,  and  which 
are  promulgated  beforehand  and  applied 
legally.  The  principle  of  all  sovereignty 
resides  in  the  nation." 

On  July  14,  1789,  the  storm  broke. 
The  gigantic  fortress  of  the  Bastile  which 
for  ages  had  reared  its  menacing  head 
among  the  people  of  Paris,  a  terrible 
engine  of  despotic  military  autocracy, 
was  attacked  and  taken  by  the  mob.  M. 
De  Launay,  its  Governor,  was  killed  by  a 
bayonet  thrust,  and  his  head  cut  from  his 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      31 

body  and  carried  through  the  streets  upon 
a  pitchfork.  "And  in  this  bloody  manner, 
into  those  dungeons  where  thousands 
had  wasted  away,  often  without  trial  and 
with  no  knowledge  of  the  charges  against 
them,  liberty  sent  her  first  ray  of  sun- 
light." 

"When  oppression  renders  a  revolution 
necessary,  insurrection  becomes  the  holiest 
of  duties,"  was  the  ringing  message  of 
Lafayette  to  the  Assembly.  The  key  of 
the  Bastile  was  given  to  him  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  freedom  in  Europe,  and  to- 
gether with  a  sketch  of  the  ruins  of  that 
fortress  of  despotism,  he  sent  it  to  George 
Washington.  "It  is  a  tribute,"  he  wrote, 
"which  I  owe,  as  a  son  to  my  adopted 
father — as  an  aide-de-camp  to  my  general 
— as  a  missionary  of  liberty  to  its  patri- 
arch." 

A  National  Guard,  a  new  army  of  two 


32      THE  SPIRIT  OP  LAFAYETTE 

hundred  thousand  citizen  soldiers,  was 
authorized  and  formed  by  the  National 
Assembly,  both  for  the  protection  of  the 
rights  of  the  people  at  home  and  for  resist- 
ance to  possible  foreign  aggression.  La- 
fayette, now  thirty-two  years  of  age,  was 
chosen  its  commander-in-chief.  Thus  was 
born  democracy  in  France. 


VI 

A  FOREIGN  peasant,  from  a  land  of 
despotic  autocracy,  who  had  just  immi- 
grated to  the  United  States,  was  once 
haled  into  one  of  our  police  courts,  charged 
with  almost  murdering  his  wife  with  a 
club.  His  defense  was  that  he  now  was  in 
a  land  of  liberty  and  he  thought  he  could 
do  what  he  liked.  Multiply  this  by  a 
million-fold  and  you  have  the  Reign  of 
Terror,  the  second  chapter  of  the  French 
Revolution. 

"Aimez  les  amis  du  peuple  et  Venihousi- 
asme  pour  la  liberte,  mais  reserves  Vaveugle 
soumission  pour  la  loi,"  said  Lafayette 
to  the  Federation  of  National  Guards. 
The  atrocities,  both  at  the  storming  of  the 

33 


34      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

Bastile  and  afterward,  he  would  not 
countenance,  and  on  more  than  one  occa- 
sion, at  the  head  of  his  armed  troops,  he 
enforced  law  and  order.  Finally,  Austria 
and  Prussia  declared  war  upon  France, 
and  Lafayette  was  sent  from  Paris  and  at 
the  head  of  a  French  army  of  twenty -eight 
thousand  men  was  stationed  at  Sedan. 

It  was  inevitable  that  he  and  the  Jaco- 
bins, the  leaders  in  the  mad  orgy  of  de- 
bauched democracy  that  succeeded  the 
initial  stages  of  the  revolution,  should  soon 
split.  For  a  long  time  the  Jacobins  had 
seemed  to  shrink  from  a  contest  with  him, 
probably  because  they  hoped  to  win  him 
over  to  their  excesses.  Finding  him  in- 
flexible, when  at  last  they  controlled  the 
government,  they  vowed  his  destruction, 
and  he  was  deprived  of  his  command. 
They  proposed  that  a  price  should  be  set 
upon  his  head  and  that  "chaque  citoyen 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      35 

put  courir  sus" — that  is  to  say,  that  any 
one  who  pleased  might  murder  him. 

Deprived  of  his  command,  and  with 
destruction  awaiting  him  in  the  rear,  his 
only  resource  was  flight.  Even  then  he 
hesitated,  but  reason  prevailed  and  on  a 
dark  and  rainy  night,  with  a  few  compan- 
ions on  horseback,  he  started  for  Holland. 
To  get  there  he  had  to  pass  through  terri- 
tory occupied  by  the  Austrian  and  Prussian 
troops.  Facing  the  almost  certain  chance 
of  falling  in  with  a  superior  force,  he  de- 
termined to  make  a  bold  front,  and  went 
directly  to  the  Austrian  commander  at 
Namur,  declaring  that  he  was  a  French 
officer  attached  to  constitutional  measures 
and  seeking  an  asylum  in  Holland.  In- 
stead of  being  given  a  passport,  he  was, 
when  recognized,  detained,  given  over  to 
a  Prussian  commander,  sent  in  a  cart  to 
Wesel  on  the  Rhine  and  there  put  in  a  cell 


36      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

in  irons.  It  was  then  intimated  to  him 
that  the  burden  of  the  situation  would  be 
lightened  if  he  would  draw  up  certain  plans 
to  be  used  against  France.  The  Prussians, 
finding  that  he  would  not  do  this,  instead  of 
treating  him  as  a  prisoner  of  war  threw 
him  into  a  dungeon  at  Magdebourg.  His 
estate  at  home  was  confiscated  and  his  wife 
imprisoned.  After  a  year's  imprisonment 
at  Magdebourg  in  a  dirty  and  humid  vault 
he  was  transferred  by  the  Prussians  from 
one  dungeon  to  another,  and  at  last  con- 
fined in  the  Austrian  citadel  of  Olmutz. 

The  walls  of  his  dungeon  at  Olmutz  were 
six  feet  thick  and  the  air  was  admitted 
through  openings  two  feet  square  secured 
at  each  end  by  massive  iron  bars.  Before 
these  loopholes  was  situated  a  broad  ditch, 
which  was  filled  with  water  only  when  it 
rained;  at  other  times  it  was  a  stagnant 
marsh  continually  emitting  disease;  beyond 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      37 

this  were  the  outer  walls  of  the  castle,  so 
that  the  slightest  breeze  could  never  refresh 
the  inmate.  Each  cell  had  two  doors,  one 
of  iron,  the  other  of  wood  nearly  two  feet 
thick,  and  both  were  covered  with  bolts, 
bars,  and  padlocks.  When  the  soldiers 
twice  a  day  brought  the  prisoner's  wretched 
portion  it  was  carefully  examined  to  find 
out  if  there  was  any  note  or  communication 
contained  in  it.  A  messy  bed  of  rotten 
straw  filled  with  vermin,  together  with  a 
broken  chair  and  an  old  worm-eaten  table, 
formed  the  whole  furniture  of  his  establish- 
ment. The  cell  was  from  eight  to  ten 
paces  long  and  six  wide;  in  storms  the 
water  frequently  flowed  through  the  loop- 
holes; when  the  sun  did  not  shine  he  re- 
mained almost  in  darkness  during  the 
whole  day. 

He  was  a  prisoner  of  war  and  entitled  to 
be  treated  as  such.     But  instead  he  was 


38      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

confined  in  a  dungeon  and  was  given  to 
believe  that  he  would  never  again  see  be- 
yond its  four  walls,  that  he  would  never 
receive  news  of  any  events  or  persons,  that 
his  name  would  be  unknown:in  the  citadel, 
and  that  in  all  accounts  of  him  sent  to 
Court  he  would  be  designated  only  by  a 
number.  Even  knives  and  forks  were 
denied  him,  and  he  was  told  that  this  was 
done  because  his  situation  was  such  as 
naturally  to  lead  to  suicide.  His  sufferings 
proved  almost  beyond  his  strength.  The 
want  of  air  and  decent  food,  and  the  loath- 
some dampness  of  his  dungeon  brought  him 
more  than  once  to  the  borders  of  the  grave. 
His  frame  was  wasted  by  diseases,  and 
on  one  occasion  he  was  so  reduced  that  "his 
hair  fell  from  him  entirely  by  the  excess  of 
his  sufferings." 

Following   a   bold   attempt   to   escape, 
the  torture  of  his  imprisonment  was  in- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      39 

creased.  Irons  were  securely  fastened 
around  his  ankles.  During  the  winter  of 
1794-1795,  which  was  extremely  severe,  he 
had  a  violent  fever  and  almost  died;  he  was 
deprived  of  proper  attendance,  of  air,  of 
suitable  food,  and  of  decent  clothes;  in 
this  state  he  had  nothing  for  his  bed  but  a 
little  damp  and  mouldy  straw;  around 
his  waist  was  a  chain  which  was  fastened 
to  the  wall  and  barely  permitted  him  to 
turn  from  one  side  to  the  other.  No  light 
was  admitted  into  his  cell.  To  increase 
his  miseries,  almost  insupportable  mental 
anguish  was  added  to  his  physical  suffering. 
He  was  made  to  believe  that  he  was  only 
saved  for  a  public  execution,  while  at  the 
same  time  he  was  not  permitted  to  know 
whether  his  family  were  still  alive  or  had 
perished  under  the  axe  during  the  Reign 
of  Terror. 

A  Prussian  statesman  to  whom  in  1793 


40      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

a  memorial  had  been  addressed  soliciting 
Lafayette's  release  is  said  to  have  replied: 
"Lafayette  has  too  much  fanaticism  for 
liberty.  He  does  not  conceal  it.  All  his 
letters  prove  it.  If  he  were  out  of  prison 
he  could  not  remain  quiet.  I  saw  him 
when  he  was  here  and  I  shall  always  recol- 
lect one  of  his  expressions,  which  surprised 
me  very  much  at  the  time:  'Do  you 
believe,'  said  he,  'that  I  went  to  America 
to  obtain  military  reputation? — it  was  for 
liberty  I  went  there.  He  who  loves  liberty 
can  only  remain  quiet  after  having  estab- 
lished it  in  his  own  country.'* 

O  liberty,  hard  is  thy  path!  License 
wearing  thy  mask  at  home,  and  thy  cham- 
pion betrayed  to  the  dungeon  of  thy  eternal 
foe! 


VII 

OUT  of  the  chaos  rose  the  dictator. 
Napoleon's  comet  was  beginning  to  ascend. 

Napoleon  Bonaparte  in  1797  was  com- 
mander in  Italy  of  the  victorious  army  of 
the  French  Republic,  and  as  such  he  de- 
manded of  Austria  that  the  French  prisoners 
hi  the  fortress  of  Olmutz  be  set  at  liberty. 
Consent  was  given  as  to  the  others,  but 
only  after  much  talk  and  grudgingly  as  to 
Lafayette.  His  unconquerable  hostility 
to  the  reigning  autocracies  was  too  well 
known,  and  Austria  even  attempted  to 
impose  the  terms  that,  if  freed,  Lafayette 
should  be  deported  to  America  under 
promise  never  again  to  put  his  foot  either 
in  Austria  or  Prussia.  But  Lafayette 

41 


42      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

himself  would  not  consent  to  be  freed  on 
these  terms,  and  Napoleon  insisted;  so, 
finally,  at  the  dictation  of  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte, on  September  19,  1797,  after  more 
than  five  years'  imprisonment,  Lafayette's 
fetters  were  knocked  off  and  he  was  re- 
leased. Napoleon  afterward  often  al- 
luded to  the  intense  hatred  of  the  mon- 
archs  and  royal  cabinets  of  Europe  for  the 
democrat  Lafayette.  "I  am  sufficiently 
hated,"  said  he  one  day  to  Lafayette, 
"by  the  princes  and  their  courtiers;  but 
it  is  nothing  to  their  hatred  for  you.  I 
have  been  so  situated  as  to  see  it,  and  I 
could  not  have  believed  that  human  hate 
could  go  so  far." 

Perhaps  at  no  time  was  the  spirit  of 
Lafayette  put  to  a  greater  test  than  in  the 
years  that  followed — the  years  of  the 
rise  of  imperial  Napoleon,  Emperor  of  the 
French. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      43 
Revenge  against  his  prison  keepers,  the 
certainty  of  high  success,  the  excitement 
of  a  great  popular  cause,  military  glory, 
gratitude  to  his  deliverer,  all  coordinated 
to  make  him  follow  the  path  of  conquest, 
and  lead  with  Napoleon.     He  could  have 
been  one  of  the  great  military  heroes  of 
those  times.     But  apparently  these  temp- 
tations rebounded  from  him  as  an  arrow 
from  a  steel  plate.     When  only  a  boy  of 
seventeen,  his  noble  relatives  had  been 
unable  to  conceive  his  refusing  an  honor- 
able place  in  royalty's  household.     It  had 
been  inconceivable  to  the  Prussian  that 
this  Frenchman  had  not  gone  to  America 
on  a  quest  solely  for  military  glory.     The 
Jacobin  clubs,  first  by  fair  promises  and 
then  by  the  demand  for  his  life  blood,  had 
sought  to  force  him  from  liberty  to  license, 
from  real  freedom  to  debauched  freedom. 
But  like  Sir  Galahad,  the  Knight  of  the 


44      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

Holy  Grail,  he  had  stood  true  to  his  quest, 
true  to  his  ideal,  true  to  the  inward  light 
that  unerringly  marked  the  real  from  the 
false,  true  to  genuine  democracy  in  its  fight 
against  autocracy.  And  now,  greater  than 
all  these  lures  and  tests,  stood  before  him 
Napoleon  Bonaparte,  his  deliverer,  the 
greatest  military  captain  of  the  world 
beckoning  him  to  paths  of  fame.  The 
sceptre  of  all  that  the  professional  soldier 
held  dear  was  thrust  into  his  hands. 
He  could  not  be  false  unto  himself,  and 
the  sceptre  was  turned  aside. 

When  he  found  that  Napoleon  was 
plotting  against  the  democracy  of  France, 
that  a  new  imperial  power  was  rising  in 
Napoleon's  person,  he  deliberately  broke 
off  his  relations  with  the  general.  During 
the  days  of  the  French  conquests  under 
Napoleon  he  lived  the  life  of  a  quiet 
country  gentleman,  interested  solely  in 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      45 

domestic  life,  agriculture,  and  the  pursuit 
of  reading  and  science.  The  man  who 
had  staked  his  all  in  a  desperate  chance  in 
the  war  of  democracy  against  despotic 
autocracy  would  not  raise  his  finger  in  a 
war  of  conquest  for  the  aggrandizement 
of  an  emperor,  though  driven  by  the  demon 
of  revenge,  drawn  by  the  ties  of  gratitude, 
and  enticed  by  the  lure  of  glory. 


vm 

ON  MARCH  1,  1815,  Napoleon  returned 
from  Elba  and  began  the  final  act  in  the 
great  drama  of  his  life.  In  a  last  effort  to 
win  Lafayette  to  his  side,  he  sent  his 
brother  Joseph  Bonaparte  on  a  special 
mission  to  Lafayette  with  word  that  the 
latter's  name  was  placed  first  upon  Na- 
poleon's list  of  peers.  Joseph  returned  with 
a  refusal.  "Should  I  ever  again  appear 
upon  the  sea  of  public  life,"  Lafayette 
had  replied,  "it  will  only  be  as  a  representa- 
tive of  the  people." 

Waterloo ! — and  Napoleon  disappeared 
forever  from  the  world  drama.  Then 
came  back  the  Bourbons,  first  Louis 
XVIH,  followed  by  Charles  X.  Step  by 

46 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      47 

step,  under  the  Bourbon  regime,  autocracy 
began  to  regain  its  grip  upon  France. 
The  year  1830  opened  ominously.  The 
rumblings  of  1789  were  again  heard.  The 
French  Chamber  of  Deputies  protested 
against  the  growing  usurpations  of  the 
crown.  The  King  boldly  defied  them, 
dissolved  the  Chamber,  annulled  the  elec- 
toral laws  then  in  force,  reduced  the 
number  of  deputies  nearly  one-half,  and 
materially  changed  the  conditions  of  suf- 
frage and  representation. 

Lafayette  was  at  his  country  estate, 
La  Grange,  when  the  Moniteur  with  a 
copy  of  these  decrees  reached  him.  He 
immediately  set  out  for  Paris.  Revolt  had 
already  commenced,  and  war  was  raging  in 
the  streets  of  the  city.  The  revolutionists 
wanted  a  leader  and  all  eyes  turned  to 
Lafayette.  He  was  called  by  acclamation 
to  command  the  National  Guard. 


48      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

He  was  now  seventy-two  years  of  age, 
but  he  accepted  the  call.  Immediately 
he  established  his  headquarters  in  Paris 
and  passed  the  whole  night  inspecting 
barriers  and  preparing  for  a  renewal  of  the 
battle  on  the  morrow.  At  dawn  it  began 
again  and  the  National  Guard  under 
Lafayette  drove  back  the  royal  troops  and 
carried  all  before  them.  On  July  29,  1830, 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies  reassembled, 
organized  a  provisional  government,  and 
formally  invested  Lafayette  with  the  pow- 
ers of  military  dictator  of  France.  "Lib- 
erty shall  triumph,"  he  replied  in  his 
letter  of  acceptance,  "or  we  will  perish 
together." 

Charles  X,  seeing  the  hopelessness  of 
the  royal  cause,  sent  a  deputation  to  La- 
fayette to  announce  the  revocation  of  the 
obnoxious  decrees  and  the  nomination  of 
a  new  and  liberal  ministry.  "It  is  too 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      49 

late,"  Lafayette  sent  word  back,  "all 
conciliation  is  impossible.  The  royal  fam- 
ily has  ceased  to  reign."  Thus  ended  the 
dynasty  of  the  elder  branch  of  the  Bour- 
bons on  the  throne  of  France.  The  deposed 
king  was  allowed  to  pass  unmolested  to 
another  country. 

The  people  who  had  accomplished  the 
revolution,  especially  the  citizen  army, 
loudly  demanded  a  republic  with  Lafayette 
for  its  president.  Others  begged  him  to 
mount  the  throne  himself.  But  to  all 
these  entreaties  he  turned  a  deaf  ear. 
He  thought  not  of  himself  but  of  France 
alone. 

A  constitutional  monarchy,  under  Louis 
Phillippe,  followed.  It  was  successful  at 
first,  until  the  old,  old  story  of  attempted 
autocratic  usurpation  was  again  repeated 
by  the  monarch.  He  was  forcibly  ejected, 
and  the  Republic  of  1848  was  formed. 


50      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

But  long  ere  this,  moving  gently  down  the 
stream  of  life,  the  journey  had  ended, 
and  Lafayette  slept  with  his  fathers. 
Vive  V Esprit  de  Lafayette! 

"The  stars  shall  fade  away,  the  sun  himself 
Grow  dim  with  age,  and  nature  sink  in  years, 
But  thou  shalt  flourish  in  immortal  youth, 
Unhurt  amidst  the  war  of  elements, 
The  wrecks  of  matter,  and  the  crush  of  worlds." 


IX 

EVERY  person  has  two  selves,  the  shell 
and  the  real  self  beneath.  Acts  are  the 
evidence  of  the  real  self.  Let  us  hope 
what  is  best  in  the  real  self  is  eternal,  for 
thus  only  does  the  world  progress. 

Lafayette  symbolized  two  great  princi- 
ples of  government.  First,  the  right  of  a 
people  to  govern  themselves,  as  opposed  to 
government  of  the  many  by  a  self -appointed 
few — in  other  words,  democracy  as  op- 
posed to  autocracy.  Second,  a  union  of 
the  democracies  to  insure  mutual  protec- 
tion and  peace. 

When  only  a  boy  at  school,  he  was  told 
in  class  one  day  to  describe  a  perfect 
courser,  and  he  sacrificed  his  hope  of 

51 


52      THE  SPIRIT  OP  LAFAYETTE 

obtaining  a  premium  by  describing  a  horse 
which  on  perceiving  the  whip  threw  down 
his  master.  He  adopted  on  his  arms  the 
device,  "Cur  non? "— "Why  not?"  Be- 
fore landing  in  America  in  1777  he  wrote 
to  his  wife:  "I  but  offer  my  services  to 
that  interesting  republic  from  motives  of 
tl  •-*  purest  kind,  unmixed  with  ambition  or 
private  views:  her  happiness  and  my  glory 
are  my  only  incentives  to  the  task.  I  hope 
that,  for  my  sake,  you  will  be  a  good  Amer- 
ican, for  that  feeling  is  worthy  of  every 
noble  heart.  The  happiness  of  America 
is  intimately  connected  with  the  happiness, 
of  all  mankind;  she  will  become  the  safe 
and  respected  asylum  of  virtue,  integrity, 
toleration,  equality,  and  tranquil  happi- 
ness." 

In  camp  at  Valley  Forge,  January,  1778, 
he  writes  to  his  wife,  who  was  then  seek- 
ing his  return:  "The  desire  ...  to 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      53 

promote  .  .  .  the  happiness  of  hu- 
manity which  is  strongly  interested  in  the 
existence  of  one  perfectly  free  nation 
.  .  .  forbids  my  departure." 

Upon  a  return  visit  to  America  in  1784, 
speaking  to  a  deputation  from  the  Penn- 
sylvania Legislature,  he  said:  "Now  that 
the  great  work  is  accomplished  let  ^s 
mutually  congratulate  ourselves  on  the 
federal  union  which  this  peace  has  ce- 
mented, and  upon  which  the  importance, 
the  power,  and  the  riches  of  this  beautiful 
country  rest;  that  union  is  the  bond  which 
will  continue  to  preserve  brotherly  love 
and  reciprocal  friendship  among  the  citi- 
zens of  the  states.  I  shall  be  happy  to 
receive  the  command  of  this  Republic 
at  every  period  of  my  existence  and  in 
whatever  part  of  the  world  I  may  be;  my 
zeal  for  its  prosperity  is  only  equalled  by 
my  gratitude  and  respect."  A  statement 


54      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

from  his  reply  to  a  special  committee 
appointed  by  Congress  to  wait  upon  him 
shows  the  same  feeling:  "May  this  im- 
mense temple  of  freedom  ever  stand  a 
lesson  to  oppressors,  an  example  to  the 
oppressed,  and  a  sanctuary  for  the  rights  of 
mankind." 

The  confederation  in  1776  of  the  thirteen 
separate  colonies  of  the  western  world 
was  a  union  of  all  the  then  existing  democ- 
racies of  a  hemisphere,  to  insure  mutual 
protection  and  peace.  Since  then,  democ- 
racy has  been  born  in  the  Old  World.  In 
its  common  cause  it  knows  no  nationality. 
Lafayette  is  the  symbol  of  its  international- 
ism. In  the  time  of  our  greatest  stress  he 
crossed  the  ocean  to  us,  saying:  "Now  is 
precisely  the  moment  to  serve  your  cause." 
To-day  democracy  in  France  is  bleeding  to 
death.  Throughout  Europe,  assailed  in 
front  by  the  giant  of  Prussian  militarism 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      55 

and  stabbed  in  the  back  by  assassins  con- 
ducting an  insidious  and  treacherous  peace 
propaganda,  it  is  staggering  under  the  com- 
bined attack.  The  spirit  of  Lafayette,  the 
democrat,  calls  to  us  across  that  same 
ocean.  The  bugles  of  the  heavens  ring  out. 
The  days  of  '76  are  born  again.  Once 
more  is  heard  the  battle-cry  of  the  Re- 
public. Where  his  spirit  calls,  our  armies 
go.  And  when  the  great  work  is  accom- 
plished, we  shall  cement  the  union  which 
he  began. 


BUT  is  democracy  worth  preserving? 
How  fares  that  intangible  something  which 
was  the  inspiration  of  this  man's  living? 
Democracy,  the  right  of  people  to  govern 
themselves,  as  opposed  to  their  control  by 
a  self-appointed  few — is  it  a  failure  or  a 
success?  Has  it  proved  itself  worth  the 
dedication  of  this  soldier  spirit? 

The  French,  for  themselves,  have  an- 
swered the  question  at  the  Battle  of  the 
Marne  and  at  Verdun.  But  how  about 
America?  Has  the  great  American  de- 
mocracy proved  a  success,  as  compared 
with  government  by  autocracy — for 
example,  as  compared  with  the  government 
of  Germany  by  the  Prussian  military 

56 


THE  SPIRIT  OP  LAFAYETTE      57 

autocracy,     headed     by    the     House    of 
Hohenzollern? 

More  than  a  century  has  passed  since 
the  surrender  of  Cornwallis.     Since  then 
in  physical  growth  and  material  success 
the  democracy  of  the  United  States  has 
more  than  fulfilled  the  highest  hopes.     At 
that  time  these  United  States  were  only  a 
strip  along  the  eastern  seaboard,  bounded 
on  the  east  by  the  Atlantic  Ocean  and  on 
the   west  by   an   unexplored    wilderness; 
thirteen  sparsely  settled  states,  the  settle- 
ments widely  separated  from  each  other, 
with  a  population  of  less  than  four  million 
persons.     Now  the  wilderness  is  overcome. 
By  the  Louisiana  Purchase  we  acquired 
the  Great  Southwest.     For  a  pittance  we 
bought  the  wastes  of  Alaska  and  then  found 
them  to  be  the  gold  fields  of  the  world. 
The  Philippines,  with  an  area  of  one  hun- 
dred and  fifteen  thousand  square  miles, 


58      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

and  the  Hawaiian  Islands  mark  the  ex- 
tension of  our  western  boundaries.  Cuba 
is  under  our  immediate  protection.  Porto 
Rico  is  part  of  us,  and  likewise  the  Danish 
West  Indies.  In  Central  America  we  have 
built  the  Panama  Canal.  By  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  we  are  the  protectors  from  foreign 
interference  of  all  of  Central  and  South 
America.  Our  population  has  grown  to 
more  than  one  hundred  million  souls. 
Our  material  wealth  is  the  greatest  of  any 
single  nation  in  the  world. 

Does  this  constitute  success?  Look  on 
the  other  side  of  the  picture.  Our  form  of 
national  government  has  been  notoriously 
inefficient — taking  Germany  as  the  stan- 
dard. Our  state  governments  at  their  best 
are  mediocre,  while  at  their  worst  they  stand 
pitifully  paralyzed  before  mob  law.  Our  un- 
punished lynchings  of  coloured  people,  in- 
nocent as  well  as  guilty,  make  us  contempt- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      59 
ible  in  the  eyes  of  the  civilized  world.     No 
other  government  on  earth  remains  silent 
and  helpless  while  its  citizens  assemble  as 
for  a  holiday  and  burn  a  criminal  at  the 
stake.      Our    municipalities    are    largely 
rotten  with  graft,  and  the  graft  is  accom- 
panied by  its  inevitable  handmaids,  ex- 
travagance   and    inefficiency.     Enormous 
wealth,  in  the  hands  of  a  few,  dwells  side 
by  side  with  extreme  poverty.    Our  cities 
are    overcrowded,    and    the    country    of 
Whittier,  where 

"Shut  in  from  all  the  world  without 
We  sat  the  clean-winged  hearth  about, 

is  handed  over  to  the  huts  and  shanties  of 
immigrants.  Capital  fights  labour  and  la- 
bour fights  capital.  Politics  are  such  that 
most  men  avoid  them.  The  standard  of 
work  is  not  how  well  you  can  do  your  job, 


60      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

but  how  much  you  can  make  out  of  it.  Is 
this  democracy  a  success? 

In  answer  to  this,  however,  does  not  an 
inner  consciousness  in  each  of  us,  perhaps 
the  spirit  of  Lafayette  and  perhaps  our 
own,  perhaps  the  whispering  of  an  unseen, 
great,  and  infinite  power,  tell  us  that  the 
really  relevant  question  is  not  whether  we 
have  yet  achieved  success,  but  whether  a 
successful  democracy  is  worth  striving  for? 
If,  however,  I  should  be  obliged  to  answer 
the  question  by  "Yes"  or  "No"  I  would 
say,  "Yes,  it  is  a  success!" 

The  best  route  for  the  development  of 
any  man  lies  along  the  hard  and  thorny 
road  of  self-development.  In  the  end, 
self-development,  by  dint  of  hard  work 
and  mistakes,  produces  the  best  man, 
provided  he  has  the  courage  to  "see  it 
through."  Nations  are  merely  big  collec- 
tions of  individuals.  In  the  end  this  self- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      61 

development  produces  the  best  nation. 
The  road  is  filled  with  difficulties,  but  so 
are  most  roads  to  goals  that  are  worth 
reaching. 

Our  national  government  may  have  been 
inefficient  in  its  details,  but  taken  as  a  whole 
it  has  created  a  country  which  for  genera- 
tions has  been  a  haven  for  the  oppressed 
of  the  world.  How  many  hundred  thou- 
sand Germans  have  immigrated  to  America? 
How  many  Americans  have  ever  emigrated 
to  Germany?  We  have  lynchings  in  the 
South,  but  no  other  country  was  ever  left  a 
more  hideous  problem  of  slavery,  and  in 
1861  when  the  supreme  test  came  the  gov- 
ernment rose  to  it;  no  one  but  a  visionary 
can  expect  an  immediate  Utopian  readjust- 
ment. Our  municipalities  abound  in  graft, 
but  what  country  before  ours  ever  faced  the 
problem  of  absorbing  annually  the  enor- 
mous flood  of  unlettered  immigrants  that 


62      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

is  unceasingly  poured  upon  us  by  the  Old 
World.  The  wonder  is  not  that  we  have 
graft,  but  that  we  have  not  more  graft. 
We  have  great  wealth  and  extreme  poverty, 
but  they  are  due  to  unusual  economic 
causes,  namely:  great  national  resources 
on  the  one  hand,  and  ceaseless  immigration 
on  the  other.  Our  cities  are  overcrowded 
and  our  standards  of  work  are  superficial, 
but  would  this  be  cured  by  a  despotism? 

And  always  we  have  the  hope  that  goes 
with  liberty,  the  undying  strength  that 
accompanies  the  knowledge  that  you  are 
master  of  your  own  soul.  A  good  despot 
at  the  head  of  a  military  autocracy  may 
for  the  time  being  make  the  most  efficient 
government  in  the  world;  certainly  a  bad 
despot  at  the  head  of  a  military  autocracy 
makes  the  worst  government.  But  I  will 
never  believe  that  the  total  surrender  of  the 
individual  to  the  guiding  hand  of  a  despotic 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      63 

autocracy  makes  in  the  end  for  the  progress 
of  the  whole.  History  shows  it  to  be  un- 
true; the  never-ceasing  efforts  of  democ- 
racy, as  endless  as  the  waves  of  the  sea, 
show  that  despotic  autocracy  cannot  last; 
and  the  hell  let  loose  upon  earth  by  Prus- 
sian autocracy,  its  modern  exponent, 
clinches  the  falsity  of  its  creed  for  all  but 
the  intoxicated  or  maniacs. 


XI 

Now  has  arisen  the  Menace,  the  eternal 
foe  of  a  free  people,  the  Prussian  Creed. 
The  following  is  a  composite  statement  of 
Prussianism:  "compiled  sentence  by  sen- 
tence from  the  utterances  of  Prussians,  the 
Kaiser  and  his  generals,  professors,  editors, 
and  Nietzsche,  part  of  it  said  in  cold  blood, 
years  before  this  war,  and  all  of  it  a  declara- 
tion of  faith  now  being  ratified  by  action." 
It  is  taken  word  for  word  from  the  eleventh 
chapter  of  Owen  Wister's  remarkable  work 
"The  Pentecost  of  Calamity,"*  and  is  the 
most  concise  statement  of  the  Menace 
that  I  have  seen. 

"We  Hohenzollerns  take  our  crown  from 
God  alone.  On  me  the  Spirit  of  God  has 


*"The  Pentecost  of  Calamity,"  by  Owen  Wister.    The 
Macmillan  Company. 

64 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      65 

descended.  I  regard  my  whole  .  .  . 
task  as  appointed  by  heaven.  Who  op- 
poses me  I  shall  crush  to  pieces.  Nothing 
must  be  settled  in  this  world  without  the 
intervention  ...  of  .  .  .  the 
German  Emperor.  He  who  listens  to 
public  opinion  runs  a  danger  of  inflicting 
immense  harm  on  ...  the  State. 
When  one  occupies  certain  positions  in  the 
world  one  ought  to  make  dupes  rather 
than  friends.  Christian  morality  cannot 
be  political.  Treaties  are  only  a  disguise 
to  conceal  other  political  aims.  Remem- 
ber that  the  German  people  are  the  chosen 
of  God. 

"Might  is  right  and  ...  is  de- 
cided by  war.  Every  youth  who  enters 
a  beer-drinking  and  duelling  club  will 
receive  the  true  direction  of  his  life.  War 
in  itself  is  a  good  thing.  God  will  see  to  it 
that  war  always  recurs.  The  efforts  di- 


66      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

reeled  toward  the  abolition  of  war  must 
not  only  be  termed  foolish,  but  absolutely 
immoral.  The  peace  of  Europe  is  only  a 
secondary  matter  for  us.  The  sight  of 
suffering  does  one  good;  the  infliction  of 
suffering  does  one  more  good.  This  war 
must  be  conducted  as  ruthlessly  as  possible. 
"The  Belgians  should  not  be  shot  dead. 
They  should  be  ...  so  left  as  to 
make  impossible  all  hope  of  recovery. 
The  troops  are  to  treat  the  Belgian  civil 
population  with  unrelenting  severity  and 
frightfulness.  Weak  nations  have  not 
the  same  right  to  live  as  powerful  .  .  . 
nations.  The  world  has  no  longer  need 
of  little  nationalities.  We  Germans  have 
little  esteem  and  less  respect  .  .  .  for 
Holland.  We  need  to  enlarge  our  colonial 
possessions;  such  territorial  acquisitions 
we  can  only  realize  at  the  cost  of  other 
states. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      67 
"Russia  must  no  longer  be  our  fron- 
tier.   The  Polish  press  should  be   anni- 
hilated    .    .     .    likewise  the  French  and 
Danish.     .     .     .    The  Poles  should  be  al- 
lowed    .     .     .    three   privileges:    to   pay 
taxes,  serve  in  the  army,  and  shut  their  jaws. 
France  must  be  so  completely   crushed 
that  she  will  never  again  cross  our  path. 
You  must  remember  that  we  have  not 
come  to  make  war  on  the  French  people, 
but  to  bring  them  the  higher  Civilization. 
The  French  have  shown  themselves  decad- 
ent and  without  respect  for  the  Divine 
law.    Against  England  we  fight  for  booty. 
Our  real  enemy  is  England.     We  have  to 
.     .     .     crush    absolutely    perfidious    Al- 
bion   .    .    .    subdue  her  to  such  an  ex- 
tent that  her  influence  all  over  the  world 
is  broken  forever . 

"German  should  replace  English  as  the 
world    language.    English,    the    bastard 


68      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

tongue  .  .  .  must  be  swept  into  the 
remotest  corners  .  .  .  until  it  has 
returned  to  its  original  elements  of  an  in- 
significant pirate  dialect.  The  German 
language  acts  as  a  blessing  which,  coming 
direct  from  the  hand  of  God,  sinks  into  the 
heart  like  a  precious  balm.  To  us,  more 
than  any  other  nation,  is  intrusted  the  true 
structure  of  human  existence.  Our  own 
country,  by  employing  military  power, 
has  attained  a  degree  of  Culture  which 
it  could  never  have  reached  by  peaceful 
means. 

"The  civilization  of  mankind  suffers 
every  time  a  German  becomes  an  Ameri- 
can. Let  us  drop  our  miserable  attempts 
to  excuse  Germany's  action.  We  willed  it. 
Our  might  shall  create  a  new  law  in  Eu- 
rope. It  is  Germany  that  strikes.  We 
are  morally  and  intellectually  superior 
beyond  all  comparison.  .  .  .  We  must 


THE  SPIRIT  OP  LAFAYETTE      60 

.  .  .  fight  with  Russian  beasts,  Eng- 
lish mercenaries,  and  Belgian  fanatics. 
We  have  nothing  to  apologize  for.  It  is 
no  consequence  whatever  if  all  the  monu- 
ments ever  created,  all  the  pictures  ever 
painted,  all  the  buildings  ever  erected  by 
the  great  architects  of  the  world,  be  de- 
stroyed. .  .  .  The  ugliest  stone  placed 
to  mark  the  burial  of  a  German  grenadier 
is  a  more  glorious  monument  than  all  the 
cathedrals  of  Europe  put  together.  No 
respect  for  the  tombs  of  Shakespeare, 
Newton,  and  Faraday. 

"They  call  us  barbarians.  What  of  it? 
The  German  claim  must  be:  .  .  .  Ed- 
ucation to  hate  .  .  .  Organization  of 
hatred  .  .  .  Education  to  the  desire 
for  hatred.  Let  us  abolish  unripe  and 
false  shame.  .  .  .  To  us  is  given  faith, 
hope,  and  hatred;  but  hatred  is  the  greatest 
among  them." 


70      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

The  German  war  code,  introduction, 
paragraph  three,  reads  as  follows:  "A  war 
conducted  with  energy  cannot  be  directed 
merely  against  the  combatants  of  the  en- 
emy state,  and  the  positions  which  they  oc- 
cupy, but  will  in  like  manner  seek  to  destroy 
the  total  intellectual  and  material  re- 
sources of  the  latter." 


XII 

WE  ARE  at  war.  On  April  6,  1917, 
the  democracy  of  the  United  States  of 
America  formally  declared  war  against 
the  autocracy  of  Germany.  What  are 
we  fighting  for? 

Two  brutes  in  the  shape  of  men  engage 
in  a  savage,  drunken  brawl.  Bloody, 
cursing,  dishevelled,  with  swollen  and  dis- 
torted features,  and  screaming  their  ana- 
themas of  drunken  hate,  they  fight  with 
the  ferocity  of  beasts.  Beasts  they  are. 

A  bully,  a  degenerate,  a  thug  of  the 
city,  a  brigand  of  the  country,  a  horse  thief 
of  the  western  plains,  attacks  a  weaker 
and  unprepared  victim.  A  man  with  red 
blood  in  his  veins  sees  the  assault,  and 

71 


72      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

attacks  the  attacker  with  strength  enough 
to  save  the  victim,  arrest  the  disturber  of 
the  peace,  and  prevent  a  repetition  of  the 
offense.  He  has  been  engaged  in  a  fight, 
but  he  is  not  a  beast. 

The  spirit  of  Lafayette  brought  him  to 
America  to  fight  for  democracy;  he  was  a 
hard  fighter  but  he  was  not  a  beast.  And 
now,  against  that  calculating  and  brutal 
power  which  with  the  treachery  of  a  tiger 
of 'the  jungle  and  all  the  devilish  ingenuity 
of  the  highest  Kultur  has  assaulted  the 
peace  of  the  world,  the  armies  of  America 
are  led  by  the  spirit  of  Lafayette. 

For  years  the  Prussian  military  autoc- 
racy has  been  preparing  for  the  leap  upon 
its  victim.  The  power  to  declare  war  has 
been  kept  solely  and  exclusively  in  the 
hands  of  the  military  autocracy.  It  is 
responsible  to  no  one.  The  great  mass 
of  people  must  do  as  they  are  commanded; 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      73 

obeying,  not  laws  made  by  themselves 
acting  through  their  duly-elected  represen- 
tatives, but  orders  promulgated  by  a 
self-appointed  few,  the  military  autoc- 
racy of  Prussia.  Woe  to  the  unfortu- 
nate victim  who  refuses  to  obey!  With 
cold-blooded  deliberation  this  military 
autocracy  which  controls  the  German 
people  has  for  years  been  preparing  its 
huge  fighting  machine.  When  the  time  to 
strike  came,  when  the  neighbouring  coun- 
tries were  least  prepared  to  resist,  Ger- 
many was  deluged  with  the  lie  that  the 
German  nation  was  attacked,  the  scrap 
of  paper  otherwise  called  a  treaty  was 
torn  up,  and  the  tiger  sprang.  The  world 
knows  the  result. 

We  enter  the  war  for  two  motives,  one 
to  preserve  the  democracies  of  Europe,  the 
other  for  our  own  preservation.  The  sink- 
ing of  our  ships  by  submarines  was  merely 


74      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

the  immediate  cause,  the  match  that  lit 
the  fire,  just  as  the  firing  on  Fort  Sumter 
was  the  proximate  but  not  the  real  cause 
of  our  Civil  War.  The  real  cause  of  our 
Civil  War  was,  as  Lincoln  said,  because  this 
nation  "could  not  endure  half  slave  and 
half  free."  The  real  cause  of  the  present 
World  War  is  because  civilization  cannot 
endure  half  military  autocracy  and  half 
free  democracy.  "The  world  must  be 
made  safe  for  democracy."  We  fight  to 
save  the  intended  victims  of  Prussianisin, 
to  arrest  the  disturber  of  the  peace,  and 
prevent  a  repetition  of  the  offense. 

The  President  of  the  United  States  in 
his  great  message,  delivered  in  the  Con- 
gress of  the  United  States  on  the  second 
day  of  April,  1917,  in  which  he  advised 
the  Congress  to  accept  the  status  of  belli- 
gerent thrust  upon  us  by  the  acts  of  the 
Imperial  Government  of  Germany  in  un- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      75 

lawfully  sinking  our  ships  and  killing  our 
citizens,  said:  "Let  us  be  very  clear,  and 
make  very  clear  to  all  the  world  what  our 
motives  and  our  objects  are.  .  .  .  Our 
object  .  .  .  is  to  vindicate  the  princi- 
ples of  peace  and  justice  in  the  life  of  the 
world  as  against  selfish  and  autocratic 
power  and  to  set  up  amongst  the  really 
free  and  self -governed  peoples  of  the  world 
such  a  concert  of  purpose  and  of  action 
as  will  henceforth  ensure  the  observance 
of  those  principles.  Neutrality  is  no  longer 
feasible  or  desirable  where  the  peace  of  the 
world  is  involved  and  the  freedom  of  its 
peoples,  and  the  menace  to  that  peace 
and  freedom  lies  in  the  existence  of  auto- 
cratic governments  backed  by  organized 
force  which  is  controlled  wholly  by  their 
will,  not  by  the  will  of  their  people.  .  .  . 
"We  are  now  about  to  accept  gauge  of 
battle  with  this  natural  foe  to  liberty  and 


76      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

shall,  if  necessary,  spend  the  whole  force 
of  the  nation  to  check  and  nullify  its  pre- 
tentions  and  its  power.  .  .  .  The 
world  must  be  made  safe  for  democracy. 
Its  peace  must  be  planted  upon  the  tested 
foundations  of  political  liberty.  We  have 
no  selfish  ends  to  serve.  We  desire  no 
conquest,  no  dominion.  We  seek  no  in- 
demnities for  ourselves,  no  material  com- 
pensation for  the  sacrifices  we  shall  freely 
make.  We  are  but  one  of  the  champions 
of  the  rights  of  mankind.  We  shall  be 
satisfied  when  those  rights  have  been  made 
as  secure  as  the  faith  and  the  freedom  of 
nations  can  make  them." 


XIII 

WE  ARE  at  war  with  the  Menace.  It  is 
the  same  Menace — now  grown  to  a  monster 
with  four  heads  dominated  by  one  brain — 
that  over  a  hundred  years  ago  invited 
Lafayette  to  its  palace  at  Potsdam* to 
review  the  Prussian  army,  and  then 
cynically  suggested  to  him  an  end  upon  the 
scaffold.  It  is  the  same  Menace,  now  from 
its  four  mouths  spitting  its  spume  of  hate 
upon  a  chaotic  world,  that  thrust  the  body 
of  the  champion  of  democracy  into  a  dun- 
geon, but  could  not  kill  his  soul.  Our 
present  war  against  this  creature  of  evil  is 
but  one  more  act  in  the  drama  begun  by 
the  spirit  of  Lafayette. 

How  shall  this  act  end?    Listen  to  this. 

77 


78      THE  SPIRIT  OP  LAFAYETTE 

I  quote  largely  from  Andre  Cheradame,  a 
man  who  deals  not  in  platitudes  and  con- 
ceits to  tickle  the  vanity  of  a  nation,  but 
in  cold,  hard  facts. 

In  1914,  when  the  war  began,  Prussian 
militarism  controlled  Germany,  with  a 
population  of  sixty-eight  millions;  and 
Germany  had  one  ally,  Austria-Hungary, 
of  whose  thirty  million  people  a  majority 
were  directly  antagonistic  to  Berlin.  By 
the  spring  of  1915  it  had  extended  and 
organized  its  power  among  these  thirty 
million  Austro-Hungarians,  who  until  that 
time  had  taken  orders  from  their  own 
independent  military  chiefs.  In  the  fall 
of  1915  it  joined  hands  with  Bulgaria  and 
Turkey  over  the  corpse  of  Serbia.  Thus, 
since  the  beginning  of  the  war,  has  been 
formed  the  Quadruple  Alliance,  dominated 
by  Prussian  militarism. 

This  alliance,  or  Prussia  before  the  alii- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      79 

ance  was  completed,  has  since  the  beginning 
of  the  war  seized  Belgium,  Poland,  Serbia, 
Albania,  Montenegro,  part  of  France,  and 
most  of  Roumania.  The  population  now 
controlled  by  Prussian  militarism  is  about 
one  hundred  and  seventy -five  million 
people.  The  economic  resources  controlled 
by  it  show  a  corresponding  increase. 
Before  the  war  began,  Prussia  planned  for  a 
Pan-Germanism  of  this  nature,  and  this 
plan  has  now  been  almost  completed. 

If  Prussia  can  now,  by  granting  preten- 
tious but  ineffective  political  reforms  to 
its  own  people  and  by  fighting  a  defensive 
war  until  the  contest  becomes  a  deadlock, 
hold  this  Pan-Germany  in  its  present  posi- 
tion, then  after  peace  has  been  declared 
it  can  organize  this  vast  additional  strength 
hi  man  power  and  resources  which  it  has 
gained,  can  Prussianize  this  additional 
one  hundred  million,  can,  by  the  same 


80      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

intrigue  which  it  has  used  in  the  past, 
undermine  during  this  period  of  peace 
the  internal  defensive  effectiveness  of  the 
democracies,  and  when  the  time  comes 
can  strike  again.  And  if  the  democracies 
are  unable  to  win  now,  what  chance  will 
they  have  then? 

Drop  the  scales  from  our  eyes  and  look 
clearly  at  the  facts,  hard  as  they  are.  The 
Menace  has  been  fighting  a  winning  fight. 
By  merely  keeping  a  deadlock  for  the  rest 
of  the  war,  and  forcing  a  truce  under  the 
guise  of  peace,  the  Menace  will  win;  pro- 
vided, however,  that  it  is  not  expelled  by 
the  German  people  themselves.  This  is 
the  strength — and  the  weakness — of  the  foe 
against  which  we  have  declared  war. 

The  Prussian  looks  a  long  way  ahead. 
M.  Cheradame,  in  his  work,  "Le  Complot 
Pan-Germaniste  Demasque,"  recites  the 
following  incident:  "In  1898,  before  Ma- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      81 

nila,  the  German  Rear-Admiral  von  Goet- 
zen,  a  friend  of  the  Kaiser,  said  to  the 
American    Admiral    Dewey,    'In     about 
fifteen  years  my  country  will  begin  a  great 
war.     .     .     .     Some  months  after  we  have 
done  our  business  in  Europe  we  shall  take 
New  York  and  probably  Washington,  and 
we  shall  keep  them  for  a  time.     .     .     . 
We  shall  extract  one  or  two  billions  of 
dollars  from  New  York  and  other  towns.'" 
The  months  referred  to  by  the  German 
sailor  may  be  turned  into  years,  and  the 
one  or  two  billions  may  be  multiplied  by 
ten — but  the  Prussian  looks  a  long  way 
ahead. 


XIV 

How  can  our  rights  and  the  rights  of 
mankind  to  which  the  President  has  alluded 
be  made  secure?  What  definite  concrete 
facts  must  be  established  in  order  that 
democracy  may  be  made  safe? 

In  the  first  place,  the  autocratic  power 
that  now  puts  terror  into  the  heart  of  the 
world  must  be  broken  beyond  repair. 
The  Hohenzollerns  and  the  rest  of  the 
military  caste  which  now  controls  Ger- 
many must  be  politically  exterminated. 
No  pretended  or  half-way  internal  political 
reforms,  leaving  a  road  for  their  return 
to  power,  will  be  sufficient.  Annihilate 
the  Menace.  The  cancer  must  be  cut  out, 
with  no  roots  left  in  the  body  politic 

82 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      83 

to  spread  its  hideous  disease  again.  Make 
an  effective  job  of  it  once  for  all.  We 
want  no  chance,  under  the  cloak  of  peace, 
for  the  return  of  this  monster. 

"  The  time  has  come  to  conquer  or  sub- 
mit," wrote  President  Wilson  shortly 
after  our  declaration  of  war.  It  is  true. 
Can  any  one  doubt  what  would  have 
happened  to  the  United  States  of  America 
if  Prussian  autocracy  had  dictated  terms 
of  peace  to  vanquished  Allies  and  as  part 
of  those  terms  had  taken  over  the  allied 
fleet  and  obtained  territory  in  Canada? 
Or  can  any  one  doubt  what  will  now  hap- 
pen to  all  the  democracies  if  the  present 
Pan-Germany,  now  existing  by  means  of 
Prussian  victories  in  this  war,  is  during  the 
next  ten  years  consolidated,  organized, 
Prussianized — and  then,  a  fighting  machine 
twice  as  powerful  as  the  machine  of  1914, 
hurled  against  the  democracies?  With 


84      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

an  army  of  seven  or  eight  million  men 
trained  to  the  hour,  with  equipped  reserves 
of  ten  or  twelve  million  more,  with  a  com- 
plete network  of  military  railroads  cap- 
able of  concentrating  the  units  of  this 
engine  of  destruction  wherever  military 
strategy  shall  designate,  and  with  aero- 
planes and  transatlantic  submarines  in 
proportion,  what  chance  will  the  democ- 
racies have? 

In  the  second  place,  it  ought  to  be  very 
clear  that  future  power  and  prosperity 
on  the  part  of  the  plain  people  of  Germany 
will  be  no  bar  to  securing  our  rights,  pro- 
vided, however,  that  this  power  and  pros- 
perity is  not  owned  and  controlled  by 
Prussian  autocracy  so  that  it  can  again  be 
forced  into  a  huge  fighting  machine  to 
put  the  rest  of  the  world  in  terror.  The 
spirit  of  Lafayette,  although  its  fight 
against  such  masters  is  eternal,  will  not 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE  85 
lead  in  a  war  of  conquest  or  annihilation 
against  the  German  people. 

"We  have  no  quarrel  with  the  German 
people,"  said  the  President  of  the  United 
States  in  his  message  of  April  2,  1917. 
"We  have  no  feeling  toward  them  but  one 
of  sympathy  and  friendship.     It  was  not 
upon  their  impulse  that  their  government 
acted  in  entering  this  war.     It  was  not 
with  their  previous  knowledge  or  approval. 
It  was  a  war  determined  upon  as  wars  used 
to  be  determined  upon  in  the  old,  unhappy 
days  when  peoples  were  nowhere  consulted 
by  their  rulers  and  wars  were  provoked 
and  waged  in  the  interest  of  dynasties  or 
of  little  groups  of  ambitious  men  who  were 
accustomed    to    use   their    fellowmen    as 
pawns  and  tools."    It  was  a  war  deter- 
mined upon  by  the  same  Menace  that 
thrust    the    democrat    Lafayette    into    a 
dungeon,  and  which  so  hated  democracy 


86      THE  SPIRIT  OP  LAFAYETTE 

that  when  compelled  to  release  him  it 
attempted  to  impose  terms  that  he  should 
be  deported  to  America,  never  again  to 
place  foot  on  Prussian  or  Austrian  soil. 

The  corollary  of  this  is  that  the  best 
security  for  the  rights  of  democracy  is  the 
establishment  of  a  republic  in  Germany. 
A  real  republic,  not  a  sham  one.  This  is 
the  one  definite,  concrete  fact  which  would 
make  the  world  safer  for  its  peoples. 

When  will  the  German  people  see  the 
light?  When  will  there  be  a  government  of 
the  people  of  Germany,  for  the  people,  and 
by  the  people?  The  shades  of  her  dead, 
led  to  the  slaughter  by  a  merciless  and 
heartless  autocracy  in  a  needless  war,  cry 
out  for  it.  What  say  you,  you  men  of 
Germany?  Among  you  are  men  whose 
souls  are  brave  and  strong  and  true,  an 
unnumbered  host.  How  long,  slaves,  will 
you  bend  your  backs  to  the  lash  of  your 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      87 

military  masters?  They  lied  to  you  and 
made  you  believe  the  Fatherland  was  at- 
tacked, and  led  you,  dupes,  into  a  war  of 
conquest.  Your  modern  Pilate,  in  his 
blasphemous  pride,  with  the  name  of  God 
upon  his  lips  and  the  blood  of  innocents 
upon  his  hands,  is  now  crucifying  Freedom 
upon  his  cross  of  iron.  But  the  day  of  the 
resurrection  will  come;  and  how  will  your 
record  stand  then?  Awake,  ye  free  of 
Germany!  When  shall  you  come  into 
your  own? 

Every  hour  that  the  coming  of  such 
a  republic  is  shortened  means  just  so 
much  less  agony  for  the  peoples  of  the 
world.  There  is  no  better  pledge  for  the 
safety  of  democracy.  "Self-governed  na- 
tions," said  the  President  of  the  United 
States  in  the  message  referred  to  above, 
"do  not  fill  their  neighbour  states  with 
spies  or  set  the  course  of  intrigue  to  bring 


88      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

about  some  critical  posture  of  affairs  which 
will  give  them  an  opportunity  to  strike 
and  make  conquest.  Such  designs  can  be 
successfully  worked  out  only  under  cover 
and  where  no  one  has  the  right  to  ask 
questions.  Cunningly  contrived  plans  of 
deception  or  aggression,  carried,  it  may  be, 
from  generation  to  generation,  can  be 
worked  out  and  kept  from  the  light  only 
within  the  privacy  of  courts  or  behind  the 
carefully  guarded  confidences  of  a  narrow 
and  privileged  class.  They  are  happily 
impossible  where  public  opinion  commands 
and  insists  upon  full  information  concern- 
ing all  the  nation's  affairs." 


XV 

WHAT  else?  The  union.  The  final  act 
in  the  world-wide  drama  of  democracy. 
The  union  of  the  democracies  of  the  world 
to  insure  mutual  protection  and  peace.  I 
mean  a  union  for  this  purpose  of  all 
those  governments  where  the  people,  by 
their  representatives,  control.  The  union 
on  two  hemispheres  of  what  the  spirit  of 
Lafayette  foresaw,  symbolized,  and  battled 
for  on  both. 

The  union  ought  to  include  the  Austrian 
and  German  people  themselves.  It  can 
never,  however,  include  the  Prussian  mil- 
itary autocracy  or  any  other  military 
autocracy.  I  quote  again  from  the  Presi- 
dent's message:  "A  steadfast  concert 


90      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

for  peace  can  never  be  maintained  except 
by  a  partnership  of  democratic  nations. 
No  autocratic  government  could  be  trusted 
to  keep  faith  within  it  or  observe  its 
covenants.  It  must  be  a  league  of  honour, 
a  partnership  of  opinion.  Intrigue  would 
eat  its  vitals  away;  the  plottings  of  inner 
circles  who  could  plan  what  they  would 
and  render  account  to  no  one  would  be  a 
corruption  seated  at  its  very  heart.  Only 
free  peoples  can  hold  their  purpose  and 
their  honour  steady  to  a  common  end  and 
prefer  the  interests  of  mankind  to  any 
narrow  interest  of  their  own.  .  .  . 
One  of  the  things  that  has  served  to  con- 
vince us  that  the  Prussian  autocracy  was 
not  and  could  never  be  our  friend  is  that 
from  the  very  outset  of  the  present  war 
it  has  filled  our  unsuspecting  communities 
and  even  our  offices  of  government  with 
spies,  and  set  criminal  intrigues  everywhere 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      91 

afoot  against  our  national  unity  of  counsel, 
our  peace  within  and  without,  our  indus- 
tries, and  our  commerce.  Indeed  it  is  now 
evident  that  its  spies  were  here  even  before 
the  war  began;  and  it  is  unhappily  not  a 
matter  of  conjecture,  but  a  fact  proved 
in  our  courts  of  justice,  that  the  intrigues 
which  have  more  than  once  come  peril- 
ously near  to  disturbing  the  peace  and 
dislocating  the  industries  of  the  country 
have  been  carried  on  at  the  instigation, 
with  the  support,  and  even  under  the  per- 
sonal direction  of  official  agents  of  the 
Imperial  Government  accredited  to  the 
Government  of  the  United  States." 

The  union  must  be  a  union  to  keep  the 
future  safe  against  war,  a  league  to  compel 
every  nation  after  the  close  of  the  present 
war  to  settle  any  claim  it  may  have  against 
its  neighbour  in  the  same  way  that  individ- 
uals settle  their  disputes — by  rules  of  right 


92      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

and  reason  instead  of  by  the  law  of  might. 
It  must  be  "some  definite  concert  of  power 
that  will  make  it  virtually  impossible  that 
any  such  catastrophe  should  ever  over- 
whelm us  again."  In  a  memorable  ad- 
dress to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States 
on  January  22,  1917,  the  President  urged 
that  the  United  States  enter  into  such  a 
league  after  the  close  of  the  present  war,  and 
on  the  point  of  effectiveness  said:  "Mere 
agreements  may  not  make  peace  secure. 
It  will  be  absolutely  necessary  that  a  force 
be  created,  as  a  guarantor  of  the  perma- 
nency of  the  settlement,  so  much  greater 
than  the  force  of  any  nation  now  engaged 
or  any  alliance  hitherto  formed  or  pro- 
jected, that  no  nation,  no  probable  com- 
bination of  nations,  could  face  or  withstand 
it.  If  the  peace  presently  to  be  made  is 
to  endure  it  must  be  a  peace  made  secure 
by  the  organized  major  force  of  mankind." 


XVI 

"Cwr  won?"— "Why  not?"  The  union 
of  the  democracies  will  be  the  culmin- 
ation of  the  world-wide  drama  begun  by 
the  spirit  of  Lafayette. 

Jesus  Christ,  nineteen  hundred  years  ago 
in  his  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  said  to  the 
wondering  multitude:  "For  verily  I  say  unto 
you,  till  heaven  and  earth  pass,  one  jot  or 
one  tittle  shall  in  no  wise  pass  from  the  law, 
till  all  be  fulfilled."  Since  then,  as  sure 
and  certain  as  the  evolution  of  time  itself, 
the  evolution  of  the  law  has  been  toward 
such  a  union. 

"God's  ways  seem  dark,  but  soon  or  late 
They  touch  the  shining  hills  of  day; 
The  evil  cannot  brook  delay, 
The  good  can  well  afford  to  wait. 
93 


94      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

Give  ermined  kings  their  hour  of  crime, 
Ye  have  the  future  grand  and  great 
The  safe  appeal  of  truth  to  time." 

Year  has  followed  year  and  century  has 
followed  century,  and  through  it  all, 
surely,  slowly,  often  torn  and  twisted  out 
of  shape  but  always  growing,  evolving, 
moving  onward,  the  law  has  followed  the 
safe  appeal  of  truth  to  time,  toward  this 
great  goal.  One  jot  or  one  tittle  shall  in 
no  wise  pass  from  it  till  all  be  fulfilled.  It 
is  the  spirit  of  Lafayette  that  leads.  It 
was  he  who  saw  "the  glory  of  the  coming 
of  the  Lord."  He  saw  fulfilled  in  fact  the 
union  of  the  separate  democracies  on  one 
hemisphere;  his  spirit  sees  the  vision  of 
their  union  on  two. 

Gaze  for  a  moment  on  what  this  soldier 
spirit  has  looked  down  upon  in  the  past  and 
on  the  vision  of  what  it  sees  for  the  future. 

Centuries   ago   individual   man   settled 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      95 

all  his  disputes  with  individual  man  by 
fighting.  It  was  the  primitive  method. 
There  was  no  law :  might  made  right.  The 
spirit  saw  savage  primeval  force,  uncon- 
quered,  untaught,  powerful  and  brutal 
hi  the  wanton  exercise  of  its  strength. 

Then,  under  the  safe  appeal  of  truth  to 
time,  there  gradually  evolved,  as  between 
man  and  man,  the  method  of  voluntary 
submission  to  a  judicial  tribunal.  Twisted 
and  gnarled  was  this  growth  however,  for 
even  under  Anglo-Saxon  law  the  right  of 
trial  by  battle  was  jealously  guarded,  and 
lasted  for  many  years.  A  noble  knight 
charged  with  an  offense  could  always  de- 
mand trial  by  battle;  and  if  he  succeeded  in 
running  through  the  body  or  otherwise 
disabling  the  man  who  made  the  accusa- 
tion, he  thereby  established  his  own  in- 
nocence and  was  acquitted  by  the  court. 
This  also  the  spirit  saw. 


96      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

Then  gradually  force  was  conquered, 
tamed,  and  used;  and  there  evolved  the 
modern  court  backed  by  the  harnessed 
force  of  the  community — backed  by  force 
sufficient  to  compel  individual  man  to 
settle  his  disputes  in  court  instead  of  by 
fighting,  and  if  he  refused  and  chose  to 
fight,  sufficient  to  compel  him  to  desist 
and  to  punish  him  for  his  attempt.  Force, 
a  human  Niagara,  wild  from  the  beginning, 
now  controlled  and  directed  by  a  higher 
law.  Imagine  the  modern  courts  of  our 
cities  and  states  without  the  backing  of 
organized  force — courts  and  judges  and 
rules  of  judicial  procedure  with  no  force  to 
support  them,  and  each  individual  in  the 
community  vested  with  the  option  in 
case  of  a  dispute  with  a  neighbour  to  settle 
that  dispute  by  attacking  the  neighbour! 
We  should  have  anarchy  within  six  months. 

What   about  nations?     What   has   the 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE      97 

spirit  seen  there?  For  nations  are  merely 
large  collections  of  individuals.  The  same 
law  of  evolution  governs  both. 

The  first  and  primitive  method  of  settling 
disputes  between  nations,  and  for  a  long 
time  the  only  one,  was  war;  and  this  the 
spirit  beheld.  Then  gradually  evolved 
the  method  of  voluntary  submission  to  a 
judicial  tribunal  such  as  the  tribunal  now 
existing  at  The  Hague,  each  nation  retain- 
ing, however,  its  right  of  trial  by  battle. 
The  next  method,  the  vision  of  the  future, 
the  new  internationalism  of  which  the 
living  Lafayette  was  the  symbol,  is  the 
harnessing  of  the  united  force  of  the  peoples 
of  the  world,  the  union  of  the  democracies 
to  enforce  the  peace  of  the  world.  It  is  a 
vision  of  the  union  to  form  a  modern  court 
backed  by  force  trained  to  obey  the  higher 
law,  backed  by  force  sufficient  to  compel 
nations  to  settle  their  disputes  in  court 


98      THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

instead  of  by  fighting.  It  is  a  vision  of  the 
war  ogre,  who  has  for  centuries  ravaged  the 
world,  at  last  shackled  and  bound;  of  the 
monster  who  with  bloody  claws  and  fangs 
has  torn,  ripped,  and  murdered  his  victims 
by  the  million,  at  last  overcome;  a  vision 
of  this  evil  brute  of  war  conquered,  and  of 
primeval  force  trained,  civilized,  and  forg- 
ing the  chains  to  hold  this  devil  of  hell. 


xvn 

DID  that  Indian  warrior  who  met  La- 
fayette in  the  American  wilderness  speak 
more  wisely  than  he  knew?  Were  the 
footsteps  of  this  soldier  of  France  directed 
by  the  Great  Spirit?  Who  can  tell! 

This  must  be  the  last  war.  We  shall 
not  hand  down  to  our  children  this  heritage 
of  calamity.  Our  Revolutionary  War  set- 
tled for  all  time  the  independence  of  these 
United  States  of  America.  The  Civil  War 
settled  for  all  time  the  question  of  slavery 
in  this  hemisphere.  This  war  must  and 
shall  settle  for  all  time  the  question  of 
military  autocratic  domination  of  the 
world.  "The  time  has  come  to  conquer  or 
submit." 

99 


100    THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE 

And  if  after  we  have  checked  and  curbed 
this  natural  foe  to  liberty  there  shall  arise  a 
concert  of  the  powers  of  the  world,  a 
world-wide  union  to  insure  and  enforce 
future  peace,  a  union  based  not  merely  on 
treaty  obligations  which  may  be  avoided, 
or  on  a  contract  which  may  be  broken, 
but  on  a  wide  understanding  and  realiza- 
tion that  organized  democracy  must  in  the 
future  act  concertedly  as  the  police  of  the 
world — then  by  just  so  much  as  we  make 
posterity  safe,  the  awful  sacrifice  will  not 
have  been  made  in  vain. 

We  build  for  posterity.  "Cur  non  ?" 
"Why  not?"  It  is  the  spirit  of  Lafayette 
that  calls.  And  with  the  call  we  hear 
from  the  heavens  the  chant  of  a  mighty 
chorus,  singing  not  the  hymn  of  hate  but 
the  paean  of  peace  on  earth,  good-will  to- 
ward men. 

Those  who  do  not  know  us  gibe  at  us  and 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LAFAYETTE     101 

throw  our  sins  in  our  teeth.  But  this 
mightiest  of  democracies  is  at  last  awaken- 
ing, is  casting  out  the  evil  genii  of  opu- 
lence, is  girding  on  its  sword  for  the  great 
work.  Soldier  of  freedom,  thou  earnest 
to  us  in  the  time  of  our  greatest  need. 
"Now,"  thou  saidst,  "is  precisely  the 
moment  to  serve  your  cause."  Symbol 
of  the  united  democracies  of  the  world, 
symbol  of  a  union  which  will  make  the 
earth  safe  for  its  peoples,  symbol  of  a 
union  of  peace,  we  are  led  by  thy  spirit. 
We  fight  for  democracy;  we  build  for  pos- 
terity. 

And  the  rain  descended,  and  the  floods 
came,  and  the  winds  blew,  and  beat  upon 
that  house;  and  it  fell  not;  for  it  was 
founded  upon  a  rock. 


THE  COUNTRY  LIFE  PRESS 
GARDEN  CITY,  N.  Y. 


A    000807218     3 


